George Santayana had irrational faith in reason - I have irrational faith in TV.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

The Borgias 3.6: Plague and Belief

Another excellent episode of The Borgias on Sunday - 3.6 - in which Caterina Sforza is revealed to be even more evil than we thought, certainly more evil than Rodrigo.

Her latest plan to cleanse Italy of the Borgias is to get the black plague into the Vatican. There is a great storyline about how her plan was almost diverted. Cesare comes upon the young Cardinal carrying a box from Caterina with a peace proposal for the Pope. Unbeknownst to Cesare and the Cardinal, the box also contains the plague. But Cesare tells the Cardinal to burn the box, knowing that it can contain no sincere peace proposal from Caterina, because she doesn't want peace. And the Cardinal almost burns the box, but at the last minute can't first resist opening it to read the proposal - and, well, we'll no doubt see the deadly results of this in weeks to come.

The other most enjoyable thread concerned Jews from Constantinople seeking to establish a community in Rome. Given that the Turks recently took over the city, changing its state religion from Eastern Christian to Islamic, this apparently seemed like a good idea. But Rodrigo has a price - he'd like a priceless relic from Istanbul, as he startes to make ready his plans to celebrate the coming of the year 1500. The Jewish delegation shows up with the Spear of Longinus, aka the Holy Lance, said to have pieced Christ. Here the history depicted on the television series gets a little murky - in our history, the Turks sent the spear to Rodrigo's predecessor in 1492.

What is historically correct and shown in this episode of The Borgias is that there were doubts about the spear's authenticity. Rodrigo of course is no fool, and in a fine scene we learn that he doesn't really care whether the spear is authentic - all that counts is what people believe it to be. Machiavelli was in last week's episode not this one, but he would have concurred completely with the preeminence of belief over reality in shaping public opinion.

The spear, by the way, exists in the Vatican to this very day, but the Church makes no claim now about its authenticity.

About Me

Paul Levinson, PhD, is Professor of Communication &
Media Studies at Fordham University in New York City.His 8 nonfiction books, including The Soft Edge (1997),
Digital McLuhan (1999), Realspace (2003), Cellphone (2004), and New New Media (2009, 2nd edition 2012), have been the
subject of major articles in the New York Times, Wired, the Christian Science
Monitor, and have been translated into 12 languages. His science fiction novels include The Silk Code (1999, ebook 2012), Borrowed Tides (2001), TheConsciousness Plague (2002, 2013), The Pixel Eye (2003), The Plot To SaveSocrates (2006, ebook 2012), and Unburning Alexandria (2013).His short stories
have been nominated for Nebula, Hugo, Edgar, and Sturgeon Awards.Paul Levinson appears on "The
O'Reilly Factor" (Fox News), "The CBS Evening News,"“NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” (PBS),“Nightline” (ABC), NPR, and numerous
national and international TV and radio programs. His 1972 album, Twice Upon a Rhyme, was re-issued in 2009 (CD) and 2010 (remastered vinyl). He reviews the best of
television in his InfiniteRegress.tv blog, and was listed in The Chronicle of
Higher Education’s “Top 10 Academic Twitterers” in 2009.

e-mail received from a reader:Dear Paul, I just dreamed of airships flying between raindrops. I just returned from 2042 CE, where I sold my hardcover copy of The Plot to Save Socrates for seventy million Neo-Euros, because it had your response to this e-mail from way back in 2007 scotch-taped onto the inside of the cover. A Paul Levinson collector paid top Neo-Euro, because of the authentic archaic e-mail printout from you. It turns out that not many of your e-mails from before your tenure as CEO of HBO/Cinemax and terms as United Nations Secretary General will survive that far into the future. So, please respond to this e-mail, to help found my great-grandchildren's fortune. My Will will stipulate that they must share with your great grandchidren. Thanks! Tom